James Mercieca

My inspiration for my work was Dancing Mutants by Hernando R Ocampo. He is from Philippines and in his art he made dancing mutants from the Nuclear Bomb, and how it affected plants and animals, causing them to mutate. I got my inspiration for this at the National Gallery. When I first looked at it, I couldn’t see the figures in the painting. But when somebody told me, I could clearly see figures that looked like they were made from seaweed or grass. These were mutated creatures. In the painting, the mutated figures remind me of seaweed and the ocean. This brought me back to how I love the ocean, diving and everything about it. I chose the number 5 because when I first went diving, I dived 5 metres deep.

First of all, I painted the whole thing with a blue wash, because I wanted it to represent the ocean. I then made a stencil of the number 5, traced around it and painted it blue. Then I incorporated texture paste on top of the five to show seaweed growing and I also used it on the bottom of the artwork to show waves. Then I used bubble wrap, one side dark green (seaweed) and the other light blue (waves). This added texture and depth into my painting. I then added white speckles and the top to finish it off. But then I realised that I was not done yet. Because all the colours on the artwork were only greens and blues, I needed to add some contrast to it. I added sort of like a yellow lightning bolt at the bottom left. I felt like this represented the vibrant sea life in the ocean. It was the life of my painting and added some depth to it as well. I also added some white to the top. My painting is now complete.